If you're male and a citizen of the United States or a legal immigrant, you must register with the Selective Service System when you turn 18 years old. For the next 7 years, if there is ever a draft, you may get called up for mandatory service in the armed forces.

When an American boy approaches that age, the US government often mails him notices, reminding him of this legal requirement.

Under the current law, once you reach the age of 25, your eligibility for the draft is over. But that didn't stop the federal government from sending out registration notices to 14,000 men in Pennsylvania. All of these men were born between the years of 1893 and 1897. The AP reports:

Chuck Huey, 73, of Kingston, said he got a notice addressed to his late grandfather Bert Huey, a World War I veteran who was born in 1894 and died in 1995 at age 100.

"I said, 'Geez, what the hell is this about?' It said he was subject to heavy fines and imprisonment if he didn't sign up for the draft board," he said. "We were just totally dumbfounded."

The error was a result of a clerk failing to select for a century when importing records from a state database. The clerk intended to move records for men born between 1993 and 1997.